You all have likely heard of the comet gracing our evening sky: Comet Lemmon (aka Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) It is in the constellation of Serpens, in the northwest after sunset here.
This is a quickie capture of 18 minutes with my telescope and camera. You will notice that the head of the comet is glowing greenish which is the result of sunlight interacting with diatomic carbon (\(C_{2}\)) and other carbon compounds in its coma as the molecules become energized (you just had to know!)
You will also notice that the "tail" has two parts to it: the white/yellowish part is made up of the dust and rock that has been blown off the comet's head by the heating of the sun. The second part of the comet tail is the long, straight, and bluish tail that always points directly away from the sun. It is called the ion tail as the solar "wind" strips the ions and pushes them away from the sun. You may also see up in the right hand corner of the image that this ion tail is distorted. That is due to differences in the solar wind. So much for tonight's lecture on comets!
I hope you enjoy the image!
It is the result of 5 - 30 second images stacked.
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